Please Feed Me Back!

FEED.

It means to give food to, or to supply.

BACK.

It means the rear surface of the human body.

Put it together, thus you get FEEDBACK.

But what does it mean?

Does it mean: to give food to the rear surface of the human body?

Hah hah, common sense would tell you not. Everybody knows that there are no holes at your back so how can food possibly pass into it?

So,

What is feedback?

Feedback is information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc., used as a basis for improvement.

- Apple Dictionary

The purpose of feedback is to alter messages so the intention of the original communicator is understood by the second communicator. It includes verbal and nonverbal responses to another person's message.

- http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcom.html

Feedback is expressing your opinion or view, whether through criticism, compliments, remarks etc. in response to something or somebody. It can be on anything, from a presentation all the way to one's choice of clothing.

- Wen Wen (:

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Now you know what feedback is. But why is it important? How does good feedback help us in learning?

People need feedback. Most people don't see themselves as others see them. For this reason, they often don't understand the impact their actions have on others. They have "blind spots." For example, people don't always know when their work is appreciated, and they aren’t always sure when they’re causing problems. Even well intentioned and hard-working people rely on ingrained patterns for success. Because they aren’t always conscious of what comes naturally, they may be the only ones who don't know that they’re adversely affecting the performance of their group. Feedback is essential to learning. If people don't fully appreciate their strengths, how can they use them to their advantage? If they aren't sure how their actions create problems, how will they know what to change, and will they have the motivation to improve?

- http://360fyi.blogspot.com/

Feedback can also be very motivating and energizing. It has strong links to employee satisfaction and productivity. People like to feel involved and identified with their organisation. Feedback can help achieve that state. Working without feedback is similar to setting out an important journey minus a map or signposts. You may have a great sense of direction but this may not be sufficient to keep you on track. When people receive little feedback they tend to either be overly self critical or self congratulatory. This is because they are relying upon events rather than specific feedback to measure their performance and impact. 

It is very difficult to be very self aware without feedback from others. Self awareness and monitoring provide a good platform but feedback from others informs us in ways that enriches our self knowledge. We no longer need to waste energy on explaining our behavior and people do not waste energy on trying to predict our behavior.

- http://www.fullcirclefeedback.com/

Feedback is very important because it lets the person know of other people's opinion and response towards the person's performance. That way, the person can know is he is doing well or not. Feedbacks would also point out the person's strengths and weaknesses, allowing him to work on his flaws and maintain his good points. Besides that, a good feedback would be likely to increase one's confidence as well and he will continue to try and improve himself and his work.

- Wen Wen (:

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Good Feedback vs Bad Feedback

Good feedbacks (Y) are very informative and helpful, it'll not only let people know what you thought about their performance, but it let's them gauge how successful it is. And through good feedbacks, they'll be more self-aware, thus work to improve and polish themselves. Although to give good feedbacks you'll have to go into great detail on everything, and even crack your head to figure out solutions to offer, your friend/family/colleague/person will definitely benefit from it.

On the other hand, bad feedbacks (N), no matter how much easier they are to give, are practically useless and sometimes even annoying. Imagine someone going to your blog and commenting:"This is a horrible post!" How will you feel? Enraged, miserable, annoyed, etc. Will you know what you did wrong? No. Will you know what you did right? No. Will you know how to make it better? No. Will you have gained or learned anything? No. Even if what the person is true, and your post is horrible not as good as it could be, chances are you will ignore the comment, assuming that it was just a mean joke and continue on as you did. Then you wouldn't improve, and your blog posts will be horrible not as good as it could be forever.

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Blogs are an awesome way to give feedback. Why, you ask? Well, because with blogs, it is online, and you have the luxury of spending every moment scrutinizing every detail before you give your feedback.  Also, when you comment on blogs you can choose to be anonymous. Thus, if your friend has just made a horrible not very good post, you can give unpleasant yet constructive feedback without your friend knowing it was you. So you wouldn't feel so bad.

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Okay okay, I will admit that I have NOT been giving good feedbacks.

Exhibit A:

Well, first of all, my feedback has little and almost nothing to do with Nicole's blog post. And it will not be beneficial in any way, just that she now know that I admire her maths skills, which isn't helpful really. It is just a random comment which might boost her self-confidence, not that it needs anymore boosting, but other than that, it's totally useless.

Exhibit B:

Here again, I was questioning Bryan's personal preferences rather than his content and presentation. Because where he puts his washing machine is totally irrelevant to what his topic is about, which is saving water. And the second part where "i agree with jia yi" is not helpful at all as I was merely agreeing with someone else's opinion, and not coming up with my own. Thus, he has gain nothing from my feedback. Another useless feedback.

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Let's give it another go, shall we?

Right, so I think I did much better on giving Kai Song feedback. As you can see, I complimented on the good points of her post and even gave her a thumbs up (Y). I also told her my opinion on her post, which would help her to understand what I thought of it. Other than that, I also gave some suggestions as to how she could improve it, with an example to help her understand my suggestion better. I believe that I gave a rather good feedback, as she would now know her strengths and weaknesses.

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So if you want to help me improve, do give me good feedbacks! As bad feedbacks are not helpful (;

teehee,

Wen Wen (: